His crime? Killing infants just a few seconds after the legal cut-off.

That's the irony of the case, and perhaps the reason why Dr. Gosnell shook his head as the sentence was read. In a country where abortion is legal, condemning him for terminating a pregnancy a few seconds late makes no legal sense.

Just common sense. Because buried deep in the heart of every doctor worthy of the name there is a very simple tenant: do no harm. And that tenant was violated horrendously at the Women's Medical Society.

The only difference was that in this case, it was violated outside the womb, in broad daylight. It's a small difference, one of just a few seconds. Inside, outside. A small, insignificant difference, but one that calls bluff on the profoundly flawed argument that abortion and infanticide are two different things.

That's why the Kermit Gosnell verdict is deeply flawed. You either accept abortion and allow infanticide - and very few abortionists would take serious umbrage at that - or you criminalize infanticide, and abortion too. But you can't have it both ways.

Right now hundreds of people, countries and organizations want it both ways, setting the stage for a legal system built on something very far removed from common sense.

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